Judd Hogan vs The World
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Judd Hogan vs The World - R L Humphries
fiction
Chapter 1
I was told that, when I arrived at the Charles McDonald Boys’ Home, west of Brisbane, I was a surprise, and an unwelcome one too.
It was a boys’ home and a terrible, terrible establishment. I was a newborn baby and not welcome. Not at all. They didn’t like newborns at that place. They couldn’t be put to work.
I really had no say in the matter. I arrived in my mother’s arms as she dashed in through the big front doors of the home, put me gently on one of the big, hard wooden chairs in the vestibule and called, ‘His name’s Judd Hogan. Please call him that so I can find him again? Sorry!’ She dashed out to a waiting car.
The screw on duty, Miss Smackie, stood surprised but then dashed out to see the car disappearing down the big driveway.
She came back and looked down at my sleeping, wrapped and cosy form.
‘Well, Mr. Judd Hogan. What are we going to do with you? Take you to Matron I suppose. And how is Judd spelt? With two d’s I think. Welcome to the McDonald Boys’ Home---I think.’
Of course, I knew none of this, and subsequent events, for a long time.
Normally, the home only took boys who were of an age to be useful in the potato fields---orphans and abandoned children and the like--- and I had a long way to go before that happened.
The home supervisor, Captain Fredrick Smith, and the Matron, Matron Elspeth Mackay, were very angry that Miss Smackie had just let it all happen. They hadn’t had a baby at the home for many years. They had to re-open the nursery, air the small bedclothes and ensure the cot hadn’t fallen to pieces.
They called the Police but, after investigating, the Police concluded that Baby Judd Hogan was in the sort of institution where the State would have put him anyway. So I stayed.
I had to hear all this from Miss Smackie when I was old enough to understand and that happened when I was old enough, at four years, to be transferred out of the nursery to the big dormitory, housing 39 boys. I was number 40. There I learned a lot, quickly.
Matron was supposed to have cared for me tenderly in the nursery during my baby years but that woman didn’t have a caring cell in her body. Or a tender one. So Miss Smackie, who was supposed to be supervising the dormitory, and that only, took me into her care. She was very busy.
I was a bronchial baby and Miss Smackie took me to the local doctor who said I should be in an oxygen tent. That was never going to happen at the Prison Farm, as the boys called it, so I was equipped with an oxygen mask. And often forgotten, even by Miss Smackie. The result was that I had a rich diet of oxygen for quite some time. Not only did my bronchial troubles disappear but the surfeit of oxygen, according to the doctor, contributed to my speedy growth and muscular development.
Miss Smackie said I was cute little fellow running around the nursery and, occasionally the dorm, with a wet nappy dragging towards my knees and an oxygen mask slipping down my face.
At four years I was a pretty big little boy and Matron was glad to throw me into the dormitory and put the Nursery back into cold storage
The custom was that when a small person, or small big person, in my case, or a new boy, arrived, he was put with an older boy who supervised him, guided him and protected him from the dorm bullies. That was Miss Smackie’s doing, nothing to do with the cold, cold Miss Mackay.
My protector was a boy, aged about 9, called Tup, real name: Robert James Harrison.
I quickly came to worship Tup and followed him around like a puppy. He didn’t mind. My rapid development continued and soon the others were wary of my strength, so I really had no need of protection, but still stayed close to Tup, my de facto big brother.
I soon reached a stage where Miss Smackie decided, as she did with all the boys, that I should know how I came to be in this huge, stone, freezing building, on the Brisbane River flats between Brisbane and Ipswich, in Queensland. So I heard the story of my mother leaving me. As far as Miss Smackie could tell, she was young and pretty and so I dreamed sometimes of a young, pretty woman, just like Miss Smackie, coming to the Prison Farm, emerging from a pinkish cloud to take me in her arms and to bear me out of this awful place.
When she told me these things, Miss Smackie would lie on my bed and gather me in her arms and, in her soft modulated voice, recite the story of Judd. The other kids gathered around but they couldn’t all crowd in, so some, bored, went off to bed.
And then, in a few months, Miss Smackie would ask me quietly if I wanted to hear the story again. It was my favourite bedtime story so I always said yes, and snuggled into her. I don’t know whether it was the snuggling or the story, but I got them both. I was a small boy, without a mother, and Miss Smackie was a lovable substitute.
I didn’t know, at that time, what an awful place the home was, because it was all I knew. I had nothing to compare it with. But I learned. Oh, yes. I learned!
The Prison Farm, or more kindly, the McDonald Boys’ Home, was established by a Scottish philanthropist who came to Queensland, Australia, many years ago and began importing whisky from his native land. He did well in those thirsty days and endowed a number of institutions around the State, including ours.
The strange thing, Miss Smackie said, was that Mr. McDonald was a fierce teetotaller, a member of the Rechabites’ Society and employed only teetotallers. In other words, she said, he didn’t drink and fought against the demon drink. But the thirsts of the colonials apparently overcame all that.
That was many years ago. When the old man died, his son took over and set out to quench what turned out to be a giant thirst. He was definitely not his father’s son. The company suffered under his neglectful management, and this flowed through to the McDonald Home. It was kept alive by funds from the State Government which saw it as a cheap refuge for orphaned and otherwise disadvantaged boys. It almost paid its way with its excellent potato crops. Our field supervisors, Horsehead Harry and Putrid Pete, might have been two large and grubby persons, dug up accidentally when the potato fields were being prepared long ago, but they knew how to grow spuds!
Miss Smackie said there was a Board of Trustees for the home but she’d never seen them in her ten years there.
Apart from the wonderful Miss Smackie there was the Manager, Captain Ernest Chapman, a fat and flabby retired Army officer who had many chins which wobbled when he became emotional or when he used the dreaded paddle to deal out punishment. And that was often.
Matron Mackay was a Scot, who migrated to Australia after the war. We all wished she’d stayed at home. She was a grey-haired, thin-lipped, cold-eyed woman, who was hated by us all. She hated us in turn and either sent us regularly to the Captain to be punished, or dealt it out herself. She was very strong. She smelt of lavender and I was never to encounter that perfume again without quickly looking around for the dreaded Matron.
There were three other screws, all women and all unloving, and the two farm labourers, Horse-Head Harry and Putrid Pete, who worked in the potato fields and lived in the tool sheds at the edge of the fields. We spent most of our time working in the fields, planting potatoes, weeding potatoes and digging up potatoes. And then we ate them and very little else.
We had to attend classes, of course. Men came sometimes and tested our knowledge. They always congratulated Matron on her excellent teaching. None of us was impressed.
We called her Miss Smackie because she used to have a stick which she would rattle as a warning when we became too exuberant in the dormitory. Sometimes she’d call, ‘Smackie stick!’ if the rattling didn’t work. But she never hit anyone.
As far as I can remember, Miss Smackie had short dark hair, very big blue eyes, kind eyes, and a sweet-smelling cuddle. I was, in effect, her baby and she brought me up. I loved her.
And then came the unforgettable night that Miss Smackie told us that she would finish up that day, and was leaving to get married. After lights out, she came to my bed and held me very tightly and for a long time. She smelt so nice. I was now nearly six, and big and strong with it. She told Tup and me that she’d waited until I could pretty well look after myself with Tup’s help and now must leave. Her fiancé was getting impatient.
She left the next morning. I went downstairs, outside the building, and broke off some sweet-smelling eucalypt blossoms as a gift for her. The others farewelled her in the dormitory.
She came out of the building, and rushed to me, engulfing me in a huge hug.
‘Oh, Judd! My little precious Judd, with two d’s. I thought I’d missed you. My real name is Ellen McIntyre and my married name will be Mrs. Arthur Dennis. Can you remember that name? Say it back to me, darling.’
I duly said, ‘Ellen McIntyre and Mrs. Arthur Dennis.’ I was big but I wasn’t dumb.
‘Good boy. Now, Judd, when you’re old enough and out of this place I want you to find me. I’ll be living at New Farm in Brisbane, and I so want you to be with me again. Please try hard to find me, darling. I’ll never forget you.’
And she got into her taxi, clutching my flowers and waving out the window and up to the dormitory windows, crowded with faces. I waited and watched until her taxi had disappeared out the gate.
Then I walked inside to be greeted by a furious Matron Mackay, who beat me long and hard for vandalising a tree. But Tup said later she was angry and jealous that we all loved Miss Smackie and hated her. I was the favourite so I got the belting.
And then my reasonably happy life at the Prison Farm came to an end.
Chapter 2
Matron Mackay had apparently just been waiting her chance because when Miss Smackie, Miss McIntyre, left, the very first night she came in and moved me the length of the dorm away from Tup. Tup asked why and Matron gave him a huge whack across the face.
The sound of the smack was loud and the normally buzzing dormitory was in shocked silence.
‘I’ll be taking over the control of the dormitory from now on, boy,’ she said to Tup, ‘and never ever question any order I give.’
‘The Captain wants to see you in 30 minutes, boy. Be there, and right on time.’
I wasn’t really worried about being moved from Tup. I looked upon him as a good friend and a guide, but I knew my way around this terrible place by now and, although Tup was older, my rapid development was making me think that I was the stronger.
I relished the work in the potato fields except when it rained. The others hated it at all times. But I set myself more and more tasks to test my strength. Up to this stage, we loaded only half a sack at a time, took them to the barn and then filled the sacks for the market.
After Miss McIntyre had been gone some time, I felt I had a point to prove, so filled a sack to three-quarters, and carried it to the trailer, hoisting it on my shoulder, surprised at how easy it was. The others watched in awe----38 boys, and I’d proved that I was the strongest of them all. I was seven years old.
I lay in bed, looking up the length of the dorm and eventually saw Tup leave quietly for his appointment with the flabby captain. I waited. Matron stood at the door and watched him leave. Then she patrolled the dormitory and we all lay, pretending to sleep.
About 30 minutes later Tup rushed into the dorm, threw himself on his bed and was sobbing, even though he tried to muffle the sobs. Every now and again, he’d half-rise and punch his bed and the pillow, shouting, ‘Oh, that bastard; that filthy, dirty bastard; I hate it here! I have to escape!’ Matron quietly left.
By now I knew enough to know that escape wasn’t an option. Those who’d tried had always been caught by the Police. They had no money and nowhere to hide. And the punishment, when they were returned, was the worst that could be meted out. I’d seen two escapes and the second boy had to be taken to hospital with bad injuries from the Captain’s beating. But when he recovered, back to the tender mercies of the McDonald Home was he transported. Nobody seemed to care about us.
The next day, in the showers, we saw Tup’s injuries. His arse was cut and bruised nearly all over—hardly a piece of untouched flesh showing. And, after that beating, he told us, the Captain had raped him. He had to explain to me about rape, what had happened and I was sickened. But I still wasn’t sure what exactly had happened.
Tup was now quietly talking murder. He was no longer the kindly boy who’d taken toddler Judd under his wing. He had murder on his mind and he didn’t care who knew it. He was eleven years old, nearing 12.
oOo
As I continued in this cold and colourless life my only interest was in becoming bigger and stronger. It was all that existed in the Prison Farm for me, until Matron Mackay, totally out of character, gave me two books to read—Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. And she gave me special permission to take them out of the classroom and to read them in what was called our common room.
Don’t be fooled. I’d read some English schoolboy books by now and our common room was nothing like the ones in those. It was a bare, cold room with wooden forms around the walls and a big wooden table in the middle. No chairs. So if you were going to get some enlightenment in our common